A Northern California man averted jail time Friday after he drunkenly trespassed at a preschool final yr and attacked a pet tortoise named Michelangelo, The San Jose Mercury Information reported.
The 42-year-old man was additionally linked to different break-ins on the East San Jose faculty, and stole hundreds of dollars of things within the days earlier than and after the assault on Michelangelo, a decades-old African sulcata, in January 2021.
The varsity's proprietor found Michelangelo bleeding final yr after the assault, impaled within the shell with 6-inch (15-centimeter) shards from a picket backyard gate publish. The person had additionally shoved a rake deal with between the animal's head and leg and broke flood lamps and put the shattered glass on the tortoise's again, The Mercury Information reported.
A choose sentenced the person Friday to 2 years of probation and necessary psychological well being and substance abuse remedy. He had pleaded no contest to fees of animal abuse, industrial housebreaking and vandalism earlier this yr, the newspaper reported.
The person is now additionally banned from having any animals for 10 years. His public defender mentioned his consumer's habits in opposition to the tortoise was the results of extreme intoxication, somewhat than animal cruelty, the newspaper wrote.
The preschool didn't return the newspaper's request for remark Friday.